Advice for #OccupyVancouver

I’m not sure what you did on Halloween, but I celebrated by handing out a bunch of apples to some strangely enthusiastic children (what is WRONG with kids today?You’re supposed to throw the apples at the house!) and getting into a Twitter fight with Occupy Vancouver.

At least they were smart enough not to engage with me directly from that account, although their Followers and the loyalty of those Followers would have increased dramatically if they had.

It all started when Pete Quily fired a shot (metaphorically, you understand. We’re hippies!).

and umbrage was taken, or at least curiosity piqued, although I expect Occupy Vancouver will now be served with documents from City Hall demanding that they had permits for the umbrage and are carrying up-to-date licenses for piquage.

I don’t know Greg Renouf, but it’s fair to say from the profile that Twitter’s not his specialty. Heck, he’s not even following Occupy Vancouver, and in these paranoid times I think it appropriate to have wondered if he’s even associated with them, but then I thought what the hell, maybe someone who’s paying attention will use my advice for good anyway, and so I let fly.

Nicely. Well, for me.

@grenouf Easy. Be timely. Announce things before they happen, so people can attend. Not a week later. Suzuki? Still?

Not only are they STILL tweeting videos of David Suzuki, but the very next tweet from Occupy Vancouver was about the Tom Morello appearance, back on October 19th. It is, I remind you, October 31st today. This highlights another weakness of the Occupy Vancouver social media activities: celebrity focus. Look, we all get that it’s big news when Mister Rage Against the Machine comes out to speak to you, but by continuing to tweet about it all you highlight is that YOU GOT NUTHIN LEFT.

Twitter is one of the most powerful drivers of attendance and excitement that I, in a twenty year history of event production, have ever seen. Do not use it to make people wistful: use it to get them excited about what’s coming up. Use it to inspire them to show up, or to follow it on social media, and make damn sure to be covering what’s going on right now, even if it’s three in the morning and things are quiet. Tweet when you’re heckled by drunks. Tweet when a raven comes down and plays with some string. Twitpic the moon as it rises over the clock tower; emotion is a mighty chain that is forged one small link at a time.

@grenouf Follow more people, and those should be Vancouverites. Follow EVERYONE IN #VANCOUVER who is on Twitter. Not other #Occupy movements

It’s the Economy, Stupid. Or rather, it’s the LOCAL Economy, Stupid. The more connected to your local community you are, the more legitimacy you have when saying that the political process no longer represents the people. If you’re following a hundred iterations of Occupy Monaco and tweeting about celebrities who left a week and a half ago, you could be said to be failing to be part of the solution, if you know what I mean. At the very least, you are wasting your own time and attention, and you’re sucking at outreach. Use a tool like Twellow and find everyone who self-identifies as a Vancouverite, and Follow all of them. Yes, all of them. Don’t just preach to the converted; you need to preach to the opponents, but more than that, you need to speak your truth in front of as many neutral or undecided people as possible, because the goal here isn’t to have a manageable twitter stream, the goal here is to change the world. You’ve got to think big, and reach out to more than you think you can handle, because changing the world is that big a job, even if you’re doing it by staying hyperlocal.

The goal of the twitter stream is NOT to stay in touch with other Occupy movements. The goal of the Twitter stream is to do outreach, drive engagement, and facilitate attendance and action. Other Occupy movements are useful in so far as they contribute to that, but no more.

@grenouf Put it in the hands of someone w/Twitter experience and a solid following. They'll know what to do. Tweet what's happening TOMORROW

Don’t see some twenty year old with a smartphone and say “Hey! He’d be perfect for the Twitter stream!” I’ve been to Occupy night after night. I’ve seen the age range. I’ve seen the tweets of some of the people onsite. You have sophisticated people who support you, whether they’re onsite 24/7 or not. Use them. Youth does not equate to expertise: this is a fallacy that trips up multinational corporations; please be smarter and more nimble than this.

@grenouf any questions? BTW average age on Twitter is 36. You will want someone who can speak to those ppl

The wifi IS a problem. It’s a big problem. When I go down there, I have to run off to Starbucks to blog it. If you have rocket sticks, wind, mobilicity, whatever, they’re wanted. And surely there must be a way to donate dataplan minutes, no?

@grenouf Ask questions of the people on Twitter listening. Pay attention. RT useful suggestions more often. Don't just RT #OWS

It doesn’t diminish the movement to rt non-celebrities from time to time. It goes back to engaging with the community. Ask people things; they want to tell you. The GA could be significantly increased if people could participate via social media as well. And the GA is the transformative experience at Occupy Vancouver.

@grenouf Twitter specifically, and social media generally, is an engagement channel. You can involve the entire city. Have a HUGE influence.

I’m not a user of the twitter account at #OccupyVancouver, but, you have inspired me to try and get setup with a login tomorrow. I’m in the right age bracket too!

It is tough putting together a leaderless organisation, but we like it that way. Each day we grow, learn and continually improve. It is a beautiful thing to watch happening.

OV has turned the grounds of the VAG into a modern day Agora. Every day, complete strangers meet at OV and engage in heated political discussions. Recently, a CEO came to visit late at night (as they do, scared of crowds I guess) and shared opinions with myself and a couple of students! We have already been a great success working towards or goal to terminate Canada’s cancer of political apathy…

Tomorrow I, along with others in our group, will address the city council and contest Anton’s attack against our movement. It appears that the property developers who pay her campaign costs are scared. This is good news- we are winning!

Appreciate your input. Hopefully we can meet next time you are at the VAG. And, to everyone else, come visit, enjoy the lively conversion, and don’t forget to try out our delicious soup- it’s free too!

Yes, they are very scared; to the point where Anton tried to ask for a waiver of the proper political process so she could move forward on evicting Occupy Vancouver. She was shut down and tarnished herself in the process, looking not just Nixonian, but FAILED Nixonian.

I’m disappointed more people who are in the 1% haven’t come down to Occupy and engaged. To me it’s a real loss of opportunity on both sides. I contacted Andrea Reimer before this all happened and suggested I walk City Hall through what to expect and how to turn it into a truly transformative process. You and I both know that it IS transformative; the challenge for City Hall is do they become a part of this process, or do they become a victim of it. Those are really the only two options I see, and I tried to advocate for the right one, but it came to nothing.

I’m around several times a week, and next week I’ll be living back downtown and can be more of a regular. I look forward to meeting you then.

We are all volunteers. Many volunteers are new to the twitter platform, but they want to help. Do you want to help? Perhaps you can hold a workshop on how to effectively use twitter? Or even tweet w/ us? The people who are good at twitter have jobs and can’t hold the fort down 24/7. This is a movement for the people, *by* the people. My favorite quote from the VAG is ….”Everyone wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.” If you get what I’m saying. In Solidarity.

You’re completely right. Thank you for the wake up call. :D I am a full-time student and sometime get sidetracked between books and trying to keep up with news that I neglect the twitter. Thank you for reminding me how bad of an idea that is. I’m not in sole control of twitter, but I am one of them. :) Thank yoU!

Why in the name of all that is holy would you create a SECOND Twitter account? Delete it; it is of no use and will only split your Follower base.

I appreciate that you’re volunteers; there has to be a floor of competence anyway, and like I said, I’ve been down there and I’ve been following the people who are on Twitter who are talking about Occupy Vancouver. They are competent. You have a wide swathe of people willing to help, so USE THEM.

I will be happy to give a workshop on using social media for Occupy Vancouver. This was Twitter-specific, but you also have Facebook (which desperately needs help too) and Tumblr (ditto). God knows what else you’ve got. I’ll come down and talk to someone about it tonight or tomorrow. Tweet with you? Do you know how many thousands of tweets about Occupy Vancouver I’ve already been putting out?

In fact, people who are good at Twitter are all unemployed and looking for gigs as social media trainers: I know, because they’re the ones going to all the same job interviews as me. Besides, after ten years of me doing social media training on the Downtown Eastside, I know damn well there are a cadre of well-trained, competent people in the marginalized community.

Me and my big mouth. Now I’m working with the Programming Committee (sheesh, Orwellian name or WHAT?) and doing social media workshops WEEKLY, probably Thursday evenings so we can use the projector. First one this Thursday at 2pm, connect at the media tent. We’ll do a generalized Intro to Social Media for Activism and if it’s a small enough group we can gather around one computer and I can demonstrate what I’m talking about. Has to be this way because we can’t use the projector this Thursday.

although not often I get called a hippy:) but hippies have done some good things.

“The goal of the twitter stream is NOT to stay in touch with other Occupy movements. The goal of the Twitter stream is to do outreach, drive engagement, and facilitate attendance and action.”

Amen.

Twitter is great for engagement and pointing to useful content and updating on news.

Like letting your supporters know that the next day a city councilor that’s running for mayor, Suzanne Anton under the NPA ticket (the political party who has a “senior business lobbyist” as it’s president) will introduce a motion to expel #occupyvancouver from the art gallery.

But Occupy Vancouver didn’t. That news wasn’t on OV’s website, facebook page or twitter the day before the event. Despite myself you and others and the MSM mentioning it. They eventually put something on twitter the actual day thereof.

There are 38 links in OV’s left sidebar but there has never been links to Occupy Vancouver twitter facebook or youtube sites on their homepage. That’s not professional level deep secret social media strategy. That’s just basic common sense.

A fake #occupyvancouver facebook page is outranking the real one in part because they don’t have links to the real facebook page on their website.

If Occupy Vancouver want’s to grow, effective use of social media can help do that and can help increase turnout to OV events and GA’s, help with fundraising, mindshare, counter rightwing smears etc.

I’m glad you’re doing social media workshops for Occupy Vancouver, it will really make a difference.

1) Our web team is working very hard to create a brand new website. All of your concerns have been addressed weeks ago. Things are moving forward beautifully.

2)The #OccupyVancouver (fake? no. what is real?) facebook group had a two week advantage on the media committee’s Facebook Page. Market Principals 101. We do have a link to our Facebook page on OV.com – Two actually (lol). I am confident we will be able to surpass all other groups with time.

4)As someone with New Media & production experience, I’ve never had to heard a larger group of cats before. I wish more individuals w/ my professional background showed up to the media committee within the first two week. However, many professionals I spoke to felt it was better to observe and work through their personal distribution channels. They saw the movement as being too chaotic in the first few days to participate with the committee. As the days go by, the determination of the newbies is inspiring, they are learning, and we are growing.

3) Please join us. It seems you have much value to add to the movement of the 99%

The media committee, which runs the twitter account and all the social networking accounts tied to OccupyVancouver.com, has standing meetings everyday @ 5:30PM at the Vancouver Art Gallery (since Oct. 15). We are inclusive. We educate. We are individuals. We are a team.

We invite all media professionals to come and share their expertise and speak as one voice as we, the media committee of Occupy Vancouver, work hard to function as a loudspeaker for Occupy Vancouver by means of audio, video, and new media!

Hope you operate on the basis that there is no such thing as a stupid question, cause here’s mine.

I get that, “you need to speak your truth in front of as many neutral or undecided people as possible…” and so you advise occupy vancouver to follow everyone in #vancouver…but isn’t the key not on how many one follows, but how many decide to follow back?

Thanks again for sharing your expertise here and on the twitter commons.

“Our web team is working very hard to create a brand new website. All of your concerns have been addressed weeks ago. Things are moving forward beautifully.”

No Sharkoo they haven’t been addressed weeks ago. Otherwise I and others wouldn’t have wasted my time tweeting about it.

I see after numerous tweets by myself and others that you’ve recently added text links to occupyvancouver twitter, facebook and youtube sites.

Thank you.

You’ve added them right below the large icons of facebook and twitter that aren’t links to your actual twitter and facebook sites like one would expect on nearly any other website but instead addthis plugin that gets people to share individual posts.

Here are the messages you’re currently asking people to share from those icons

these plugins or the sharethis one should be used not in the main sidebar but at the top or bottom of each individual post.

again thanks for adding the text links, please consider replacing them with large icons that link directly to your twitter facebook youtube and livestream accounts and use the addthis plugin at the top and or bottom of individual blog posts.

Good luck with the new website i hope it’s in wordpress since there are many wordpress blog designers and coders and bloggers in the vancouver area vs an obscure CMS

I know how hard it can be to be a cat herder from a different personal experience, it’s not easy and good on you for stepping up and adapting.

Maybe I’ll drop down someday around 5.30, not a designer or coder myself but have been online before the world wide web existed

Pete, like I said, we are creating a brand NEW site. It has yet to be released.

Please understand that the same people that are creating the new site… are also trying admin the current site. As you are a web developer, you know that building a new site is a deeply complicated process. You would also know it would be best to have all your little ducks in a row before you build a website. The wonderful woman who volunteered to build the first website had no idea of what the current movement would look like. She simply knew that we need a web presences ASAP — mainly for announcements. This created a very rigged and non-flexible website that we have now have to reconstruct from scratch.

And like I said, all the concerns that you have brought up have been addressed and are being implemented in the new site (which I was referring to).

At the end of the day we had to make a decision if we were going to spend our precious time trying to spit shine a turd (no offense) or move forward. We are moving forward. All your concerns are being addressed in the new release (2.0).

The same web/graphics team will then move on to our twitter, facebook, blogs, etc to revamp them as well. If we had more hands on deck this process would move much faster. Until then I will state again things are going along beautifully. I’m am proud of the work that is being done.

I would love to meet both you and Raincoaster today, but I’m horribly sick after working an overnight shift at the media tent. I hope to meet you and work with you both very soon. Thank you for your support!

Pete, SEE how much you have to contribute? You should swing by Thursday the 3rd at 2 by the media tent.

Also: there’s not just the website, which they SAY they’re replacing with a whole new system. There’s also a blog (wordpress), AND a tumblr; you’d never know it from the website, would you? They are unconnected, and the blog in particular has some serious need of informed help.

Sharkoo, thanks. Your message hadn’t been posted when I replied to the above messages. I’m coming tomorrow for 2pm and will probably stay for the GA, which I may or may not liveblog. I’m with Pete, though, when he says things are not moving forward beautifully. If you’re going to go with a new platform, for the love of all that is holy go with something opensource, robust, and WELL KNOWN. That means Drupal or WordPress, both of which are free.

Occupy Vancouver has now reached the crisis point. If it makes it through to Tuesday morning, it’ll survive. If people within it continue to attack journalists and videographers, it’ll get shut down. All it takes is one assault charge. I understand that everyone is sleep deprived, emotional and on edge, but this is the make or break moment. Stay calm, breathe deep, and when it isn’t working, go to the Meditation Tent and take a break. Maybe go for a walk offsite. Because this is about something so much larger than any one of us; it’s about changing the world. And being a part of that world is key to our very humanity. If it becomes Us vs Them, it fails. If it’s Us on behalf of Them, it has a chance to succeed.

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